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		<header>
			<h1>A new bike!?</h1>
			<p>Day 01418: <time>Wednesday, 2019 January 23</time></p>
		</header>
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2019/01/23.jpg" alt="A manly black bike with blue trim" class="framed-centred-image" width="649" height="480"/>
<section id="lazy">
	<h2>Lazy</h2>
	<p>
		I know I should have worked on the job hunt today, but I didn&apos;t.
		I know if I wasn&apos;t going to work on the job hunt, I should&apos;ve worked on finding a place that offers <abbr title="light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation">laser</abbr> hair removal, but again, I didn&apos;t.
		I mostly was just incredibly lazy today and didn&apos;t get enough of note done.
		At least I stopped by my workplace to pick up the telephone number of a third reference though.
		I was supposed to pick it up before I left work last night, but we were so busy that I let it slip my mind.
	</p>
	<p>
		Today&apos;s journal entry is quite a long one, but make no mistake: I didn&apos;t actually get much accomplished.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="bicycle">
	<h2>New bicycle</h2>
	<p>
		It seems that when people move out of this complex, they tend to dump their belongings on the on-site manager.
		I&apos;m not sure if that&apos;s part of the on-site manager&apos;s job or if people are just incredibly inconsiderate.
		Anyway, the people next door moved out, and part of what they left behind was a pair of bicycles.
		The on-site manager&apos;s mother gave one of them to me!
	</p>
	<p>
		This is perhaps the fanciest-looking bike I&apos;ve ever owned.
		It&apos;s a bit too manly-looking for me, but that won&apos;t be a problem forever.
		The truth is that I tend to over-compensate for my masculine body by surrounding myself with feminine belongings, but once my face and voice are fixed, I won&apos;t really need to do that any more.
	</p>
	<p>
		The on-site manager&apos;s mother pointed out that the seat is loose and needs to be tightened, but after having gotten a better look at it, I think it&apos;s just built to be a swivel seat, which is mildly obnoxious.
		There don&apos;t actually seem to be any loose bolts to tighten though.
		Neither of us could figure out how to get the bizarre kickstand to function.
		It was locked in place and wouldn&apos;t budge.
		After flipping the bike upside-down to get a better look, it was easy enough to see how it locked, and backtrack that to figure out how to unlock it.
		It&apos;s got an odd pressure plate, and it&apos;s only on that plate that you can press to lift the kickstand.
		I thought that plate was some sort of sliding latch at first, but that&apos;s not how it functions.
	</p>
	<p>
		Like the totalled bike, this bike&apos;s frame is an odd shape, so I can&apos;t attack the dock for my bike lock onto it.
		I&apos;ll need to find another way to avoid forgetting to bring the lock when I go out.
		It&apos;s nice to have shocks again though.
		The totalled bike has shocks, but the bike I&apos;ve been riding since then doesn&apos;t.
		The brakes are also fantastic.
		I mentioned before that my current bike&apos;s brakes were incredibly sensitive and could stop the bike quite quickly.
		However, I later found out the brakes were grabbing onto the tires instead of the wheels, and wearing holes in the tires.
		When I corrected the brake alignment, it also corrected the sensitivity and power of the brakes.
		They became normal brakes, as it was the brake-on-tire action that was making them work so great.
		This new bike&apos;s brakes stop the bike much better, but without the annoying sensitivity of the misaligned brakes.
	</p>
	<p>
		The seat on this bike is too high, and the handle bars are too low, so I have to lean over much more to ride the thing than I&apos;d like to.
		It also feels like I have very little leverage on the peddles, like they&apos;re too short or something, so I don&apos;t move my legs much to power it.
		Maybe that&apos;s supposed to be a good thing, but it&apos;ll take some getting used to.
		The bike feels slow, but that may improve as I get used to how to peddle this thing, and can better peddle faster.
		The biggest note I have about how this bike handles though is that it can be more-easily started from a dead stop, even on the highest gear.
		On my current bike, forgetting to shift down to the lowest gear or having to stop unexpectedly while still on a high gear causes hassle when you need to get going again, but this new bike doesn&apos;t have that problem.
		Admittedly, getting started while on the high gear is still harder than on the low gear, but not so much that it presents any sort of problem whatsoever.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="health">
	<h2>Doctor appointment</h2>
	<p>
		I got that medical check-up I mentioned yesterday scheduled.
		It&apos;s on 2019-02-18 at 13:40.
		The time&apos;s pushing it though.
		I&apos;m not sure I&apos;ll have time to go home and change for work after the appointment, so I should probably bring my work clothing and other things I&apos;ll need for work with me to the doctors&apos; office.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="package">
	<h2>Birthday package</h2>
	<p>
		Cyrus&apos; birthday is tomorrow.
		Last time I tried to send him a gift, he wouldn&apos;t give me his address.
		It took longer than expected to track down his address this time.
		I can&apos;t ask our mother, as she&apos;s disowned him and would be angry that I was trying to send him a birthday gift.
		I instead wrote to Vanessa, but she didn&apos;t respond for several days.
		I couldn&apos;t ask her in person, as there&apos;s no way to reach her when our mother&apos;s not around to overhear.
	</p>
	<p>
		Today, I finally had the address, but the only boxes I could find were too large or too small.
		I needed to resize one.
		I didn&apos;t have shipping tape, so I headed to the store for that.
		Unfortunately, I got too distracted by pens I saw there (see below), so I didn&apos;t get the box resized in time to reach the post office before they closed.
		It&apos;s not like the package would make it to him overnight, anyway though.
		That&apos;s what he gets for not giving me his address.
	</p>
	<p>
		The funny thing is that he&apos;s not trying to avoid gifts by any means.
		He just knows that I don&apos;t celebrate birthdays, so didn&apos;t want to inconvenience me with his.
		Of course, he <strong>*does*</strong> celebrate birthdays though, so the polite thing to do is to send a gift.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="PENS">
	<h2>PENS!</h2>
	<p>
		While I was at the store looking for packing tape, I found sets of <strong>*generic gel pens*</strong>!
		I&apos;d already checked this store for the pens, so they must be a new item.
		I snatched up a set right away.
		The set is a bit more expensive than the one I saw online, even though it has fewer pens, but it has one thing the online set doesn&apos;t have: I could see it before I bought it.
		Even though this set has six of those stupid swirl pens and the set online seemed to have none, at least with this set, I know what I&apos;m getting.
		I could see without question that the pens were identical to the ones I already had, and would thus fit into my pens case.
		With the pens in hand, I went home and cancelled my online order, which still hadn&apos;t been shipped.
	</p>
	<p>
		Taking a closer look at the pens after unboxing them, I found some subtle differences between my pens and these new ones.
		The blunt end of the pens, the side you don&apos;t write with, is rounded on the new set and flat on the old set.
		The clips on the caps (which of course you can&apos;t actually use on either set because they&apos;re too fragile and would break; they&apos;re pretty much just aesthetic) have a smaller protrusion under them on the new pens as well.
		This puts into question my theory that these generic gel pen companies are using the same moulds as one another.
		The important things though are that the pens are thin enough to fit (due to being nearly identical to the other set) and they&apos;re unbranded.
	</p>
	<p>
		Upon even closer inspection, it seems the new pens are numbered.
		I&apos;m not sure what the numbers are for though.
		It&apos;s certainly not for matching pens to refills or anything like that.
		The number &quot;A10&quot; on the shafts correspond to both a plain black pen and a semi-pastel swirl pen, for example, and the colours don&apos;t get much different than that.
		unmatched numbers are present on the caps, as well.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="battery">
	<h2>Lost battery</h2>
	<p>
		It seems one of the two batteries I lost just fell into my backpack, so now I have that back.
		I&apos;m guessing this is the second battery I lost, so the first is the only one actually missing.
		I doubt I&apos;ll see that one again though.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="religion">
	<h2>Religion</h2>
	<p>
		I don&apos;t see me being productive tomorrow, either.
		Tonight, the missionaries finally came back.
		They apologised for blowing off our last appointment, and wanted to set up a new one for tomorrow.
		I should&apos;ve said I was done with them wasting my time, but that&apos;s not really who I am.
		Besides, if I take up their time, that&apos;s less time they have to meet with more-gullible people that might fall for their claims of eternal salvation.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="agenda">
	<h2>Tomorrow&apos;s agenda</h2>
	<p>
		I was thinking about job hunting tomorrow, but it looks like that&apos;s unlikely to occur.
		I need to meet with the missionaries in the morning.
		After that, I should take that package to the post office to get it sent.
		And in the evening, I&apos;ll have my <abbr title="Eugene Unix &amp; GNU/Linux User Group">EUGLUG</abbr> meeting.
		I tried to pay rent earlier today, but the on-site manager was out, so I should try again tomorrow, too.
		That leaves me with my morning and evening tied up, but time to maybe be productive in between.
		I should get those job applications filled out, then turn them in the next day.
	</p>
</section>
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